London Irish would like to sincerely apologise to all supporters for any issues you may have encountered with car parking at the Madejski Stadium on Sunday 16th March for the St Patrick’s Party match against Wasps.
Prior to the match, we had restricted car parking at the Stadium to those with seasonal car parking permits only. The Guinness Village clearly takes up a considerable amount of space and we wanted to ensure that those with seasonal permits would be catered for; hence we advertised that there would be no Stadium parking available for purchase on the day, and that only those with permits would be allowed to park directly at the Stadium. In addition we arranged and publicised a list of the available car parks including Worton Grange, the Holiday Inn Reading South, the Greyhound Stadium and Terra Nova, as well as town centre car parks. We also recommended that supporters make use of the Park & Ride facility at Foster Wheeler (Shinfield Park) where buses ran to and from the Stadium from 10.30am to 9pm that night, in addition to the numerous shuttle buses running throughout the day from Reading train station.
It has since come to our attention that problems did occur last Sunday, as a number of seasonal permit holders were turned away by stewards in attendance who claimed that the car parks were full, when in fact there were numerous spaces available right up until kick-off. I want to reiterate that London Irish did not oversell the car park spaces at the Stadium.
The car park stewards in question work under the direction of the Stadium Manager at the Madejski, who we have been dealing with to try and decipher what went wrong, and where the breakdown in communication occurred.
Rest assured that London Irish have not taken these problems lightly, and will endeavour to avoid a repeat of such a situation in the future. An update on the parking situation for the Heineken Cup Quarter Final against USAP (Perpignan) on April 5th will be issued on the website over the coming days.
On behalf of the club, I would like to apologise again for any inconvenience caused, and to thank you for your continued support.
James Durbin
Sales & Commercial Manager